


Magical Girl

by Sub_Rosa



Category: Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magika | Puella Magi Madoka Magica
Genre: Gen, Trans Female Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-02
Updated: 2016-05-02
Packaged: 2018-06-05 22:35:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6726178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sub_Rosa/pseuds/Sub_Rosa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Madoka never did tell Homura what her wish was. But when Homura began traveling back in time, it became all too obvious.</p><p>(Because Kyubey always did prey on the most desperate and vulnerable.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Magical Girl

**N**

 

Homura Akemi meets Madoka Kaname for the first time in the middle of a stuttered, almost-whispered greeting, while she’s still a nervous and heart-disease riddled wreck of a human being.

It’s not a _meeting_ , per se, because Homura is just standing at the front of the class, introducing herself at the teacher’s behest, and Madoka is practically all the way in the back of the room. But still, Madoka looks at Homura, and Homura meets Madoka's eyes, and she's somehow buoyed by the gentle encouragement that she sees in them.

She finishes her introduction, and sits down, and at break all the other girls cluster around her to ask her all the questions she doesn’t know how to answer. What school did you come from, what clubs were you in, tell me about your hair?

Homura is drowning, even though she hasn’t even opened her mouth to breathe.

“Ah, Miss Akemi?”

The voice is somehow nicer than the others, and Homura clings to it like a lifeline in a storm.

“I’m the nurse’s aid for this class, Madoka Kaname,” The voice says, and the girls surrounding Homura peel away to give Homura a line of sight to Madoka. “I’ve been asked to show you around our school. Is this a good time?”

It’s not like there’s ever going to be a _better_ time. But something wrong - didn’t she already get a tour?

“I, uh…” Homura begins haltingly, and a little afraid of her own voice. “Yes, that would be fine.”

The girls who seemed so engulfing before flit away with their own sundry apologies as Madoka escorts Homura out of the room. Then Madoka turns and smiles.

“The nurse’s office is down this way. I’ll take you?”

“Uh, okay?” Homura responds, before shaking her head a little. “I mean, okay.”

Madoka doesn’t look patronizing or pitying for even a second, even though her words from earlier - about showing Homura around - are obviously just a thinly veiled excuse to get Homura down to the nurse for the medicine she needs without making a big deal out of Homura’s pitiful condition.

Homura is bewildered but grateful, if nothing else. Not that she knows how to say it.

“Here, we’re almost there,” Madoka says. “By the way, I’m sorry about those other girls. They’re just excited because we don’t normally get new students here.”

“Oh…” Homura says, trailing off. “It’s not your fault, Miss Kaname… but thank you very much for that.”

“Please, call me Madoka,” Madoka says. “We’re classmates now, right?”

“Isn’t that too intimate?” Homura asks without thinking about it, before covering her mouth up and blushing.

“It’s fine,” Madoka says easily. “Is it okay if I call you Homura?”

Homura has no choice about how to answer, even though there's no-one who would begrudge her either way.

“I… guess?” She mumbles, put on the spot. “I don’t know why you’d want to call me that, though. It’s kind of a weird name, isn’t it?”

“Not at all!” Madoka says back, with a sunny smile. “I like it, you know - it’s pretty cool to be named after flame.”

“I don’t know…” Homura says, a little embarrassed. "It's just a name."

"Just a name?" Madoka asks. Her smile turns a little wretched. "I suppose I can see why you would feel that way."

Homura wants to ask what on earth Madoka is talking about, but the nurse’s office looms before them and suddenly she has other concerns.

 

**N**

 

The second time Homura Akemi meets Madoka Kaname, she’s neck-deep in the psychedelic and distorted dreamscape she later learns is called a _labyrinth_. The spawn of a so-called ‘witch.’

“Don’t worry!” Madoka says brightly, and Homura has to re-evaluate everything she knows about Madoka on the spot. “You’re safe now, Homura.”

“What,” Homura says flatly, too shocked to say anything more.

“I see you’re confused,” A new voice states, emanating from what looks like a stuffed animal sitting on Madoka’s shoulder.

“What?” Homura asks again.

“You see,” Madoka begins, “We’re Magical Girls!”

And then Homura realizes that she has to re-evaluate everything she knows about _everything_ , because apparently Magical Girls are real, alongside monsters and magic and talking animals.

“What!?”

Madoka laughs at the gobsmacked expression on Homura’s face. Homura doesn’t feel insulted or belittled, because Madoka is just too nice for that.

 

**N**

 

“Miss Kaname, do you really fight those things all the time?” Homura asks later, when the monsters - ‘familiars’ - are all gone, and they’re decompressing at Mami Tomoe’s apartment.

“Not really,” Madoka says bashfully. “I’ve only been doing this for a little while. Mami is the real veteran here.”

“You’re too kind,” Mami says sweetly, like the sugar-laden tea Madoka is slugging down with surprising politeness. “You were doing great even without my help, you know.”

Madoka shrugs, trying to push the spotlight away from her. “But it’s true! I only contracted a week ago!”

Homura frowns. “Contracted?”

And then Mami explains the contract they made with the enigmatic Kyubey. Somehow, Homura feels more than a little bit put-off by the whole thing, but she lets it slide.

“What did you wish for, Miss Kaname?” Homura asks, before clamming up at her own presumption. Madoka clams up too, suddenly looking _horribly_ ashamed and guilty from what little Homura can see.

Looking horribly vulnerable.

“I… don’t really want to answer that question, if you don’t mind,” Madoka says quietly, more subdued than Homura has ever seen before.

“Of course, Miss Kaname!” Homura blurts out. “I didn’t mean to assume-”

“It’s fine!” Madoka says, waving Homura’s apologies away. “It’s not your fault for being curious.”

Madoka never does answer Homura’s question, though, and Homura always does wonder. Even Mami - who lost her entire family because she made the 'wrong' wish - is more forthcoming about her contract with Kyubey.

But it’s probably none of Homura’s business anyways.

 

**N+3**

 

Several timelines later, it _becomes_ Homura’s business.

“You can go back in time, right, Homura?” Madoka asks, as the ruins of Mitakihara crumble around them. Homura is barely able to nod, with the bone-deep weariness in her flesh.

“I will,” Homura says resolutely, because she can’t stand to see Madoka die like this and let it just… be that way forever. Can’t let this horrible _wrong_ go unfixed.

“Thank you…” Madoka whispers, closing her eyes for a moment. “Please, save me from being stupid, from being tricked. Don’t let Kyubey fool me again. It wasn’t worth it.”

“I will!” Homura replies with more fierceness than she expected to be able to summon up. “I swear I’ll save you! I’ll do whatever it takes!”

Madoka smiles even as she cries.

“Homura…” She whispers. “I’m so sorry… sorry for lying to you… sorry for being so weird and messed up…”

“You’re not messed up!” Homura exclaims. “You’re my best friend! I won’t let anyone talk about you like that, not even you!”

Madoka’s smile turns bitter, poisoned by her own dark thoughts.

“I’m so, so, sorry,” Madoka says. “If I’m really your best friend, you deserve someone better than me.”

She’s barely able to finish her sentence, because her soul gem is crumbling, crumbling, crumbling into black, about to spill forth the most terrible thing in the world.

Homura's gun fires, and Homura’s shield begins spinning, dragging her back, back, back through time.

 

**N+4**

 

The third and final time that Homura Akemi meets Madoka Kaname, she’s healed her eyes, healed her heart, and she holds one of Kyubey’s many corpses in her hand.

She knows Madoka’s home like the soul gem on the back of her hand. Which is why she’s surprised to see that Madoka’s room isn’t _Madoka’s room_. It’s eerily similar, but wrong in just a few places - which sends chills up and down her spine. The colors are different - the wallpaper all in soft shades of yellow instead of pink - and the stuffed animals are all but gone.

Madoka herself isn’t there. Instead, an unfamiliar boy with soft brown hair is sitting at the computer, doing homework and chewing furtively on a pencil.

Homura drops Kyubey’s body in the yard, transforming out of her Magical Girl raiment to clean up the blood which covers her hands and sleeves. It’s child’s play to walk around the house, approaching the front door instead of the window of Madoka’s room, and ring the doorbell.

Junko Kaname answers the door, just like she always does whenever Homura comes over to Madoka’s house.

“Can I help you?” Junko asks, looking a little worried as she looks Homura up and down. Homura wastes no time.

“Yes. I’m looking for Madoka Kaname,” Homura says, doing her best to look like the approachable girl she once was. Junko frowns.

“I’m afraid you’ve come to the wrong place,” Junko says apologetically. “I’m sorry for the trouble, if it’s kept you out so late at night.”

Homura’s heart would have stopped, if it were still capable of such fragile human failures.

“I don’t understand,” Homura asks weakly. “Madoka Kaname, your daughter? Aren’t you Junko Kaname?”

Junko just shakes her head. “I _am_ Junko Kaname, but you must be misinformed. I don’t have any daughters.”

“No, that can’t be…” Homura says, taken sharply aback. “But… I’ve _met_ her. It can’t be…”

Junko suddenly looks at Homura with more than a bit of pity. Homura _hates_ being pitied, but she doesn’t let it show because she _can’t_ turn away this one familiar figure in a family which has somehow transfigured itself in-between the time loops.

“Do you have a place to stay for the night?” She asks, not unkindly. Homura waves that question off.

“I’ll be fine, Miss Kaname,” She says. “I’m just a bit confused, that’s all, but I guess I must have gotten the wrong address. You really don’t know a Madoka Kaname?”

“I don’t,” Junko confirms. Homura nods and turns away.

“I’m sorry for wasting your time.”

 

**N+4**

 

A few moments later, Homura realizes her mistake. She hasn’t met Madoka properly in this timeline, so obviously Junko was just reticent to tell a ‘stranger’ about her daughter.

Homura circles back around the house, back around to Madoka’s room, and peers through the window. Madoka isn’t back yet.

On the other hand, the brown-haired boy is still there, and he gets up at exactly the same moment that Homura walks up to the window. She steps on Kyubey’s body as she does so, just out of spite, and in that moment she’s distracted enough to stand still.

The brown-haired boy catches a glimpse of her as he gets up, and he pauses. Then he walks up to the window and cracks it open.

“Hello! He says, looking cheerful but a little bit drawn. “Haven’t I seen you around school?”

His eyes are pink.

“Maybe,” Homura says. “Sorry to bother you. I was just looking for Madoka.”

The boy _freezes_ on the spot. And then he folds into himself.

“Who told you that name?” He asks, sounding hurt and confused. “Are you _stalking_ me? How do you even know that-!? I've never told anyone!”

Homura doesn’t even _know_ where stalking comes into things, but she _is_ standing outside of his window, so... well, it’s an understandable suspicion.

“No?” Homura replies. “Know about what? I was just told that a Madoka Kaname lives here.”

His face absolutely screws up.

And then he closes the window. And the shades.

Less than five minutes later, Madoka’s father comes around the corner, looking livid. Homura is already gone in a flash of bent time.

 

**N+5**

 

The next time she meets Kyubey, who is still watching Madoka’s home, Homura wraps her hands around its little conniving throat. She just barely restrains herself from _squeezing_ and hearing the _snap_ she’s grown to find quite cathartic.

“Where is Madoka Kaname?” She asks the deceptive creature. Kyubey would have cocked its head if it wasn’t in a death grip.

“No such person exists that I know of,” It says plainly, in its falsely sweet voice.

“Don’t lie to me,” Homura says. “I know you don’t want to waste your bodies, you’ve made that clear before. So unless you want me to make a _lot_ of waste, I suggest that you tell me where she is. The Magical Girl you want to contract with.”

The thing about Kyubey is, its easy to negotiate with it. The only thing he _won’t_ do is compromise on its mission, but its surprisingly effortless to squeeze him for information, if you bother with it. That won't stop him from manipulating events to get you killed, if he decides that you're too much of a hassle; but time looping means that Homura can wipe clean the consequences of her interrogation here.

“I am telling you,” Kyubey begins. “There is no Madoka Kaname. The only one I’m trying to make a contract with is Makoto Kaname. Did you get his name wrong?”

It's then that Homura realizes how much she doesn’t know.

“You contract with males?” She asks in her monotone.

“Not normally,” Kyubey replies. “We can easily form contracts with any being that possesses a soul, but we find it more conducive to our goals to awaken magical powers within adolescent females. However, there exists a not-insignificant significant population of deviant males who are willing to convert themselves into females via the wishes we grant for them.”

Homura feels a stirring of shock, punching straight through the crust of jade about her, and Kyubey actually manages to squirm free of her grasp.

Kyubey looks more smug than ever.

“In actuality, this population of deviant males is almost easier to contract with than normal females,” Kyubey says haughtily. Or it  _sounds_ haughty, at any rate - an affectation it puts on to sound like it has human emotion, to piss her off. It's not above such manipulations. “Their irrational desire to become female is extremely easy to exploit. If not for their rarity, they would be perfect targets for contracting-”

A serenade of bullets rips through Kyubey’s body, turning it into so much cotton and gorey slush.

In her own pocket of stopped time, Homura  _wails._

 

**N+6**

 

She goes back in time immediately, because she has _no fucking clue_ how to deal with this. No idea how to feel about the fact that her very best friend in all possible timelines is, indeed, just as weird as he (she?) claimed.

Several timelines go by just in a haze of research, in libraries, online, in books, and more. At first, Homura listens to what they have to say, and decides that Madoka must just be crazy and deluded.

Then she realizes that she’s being _fucking stupid_ , and obviously the libraries and books and websites are the crazy and deluded ones.

In this world of magic, and souls, it’s not like a boy who is really a girl is so impossible. And even if there was no magic, no soul to validate Madoka, Homura would still find it hard to deny her memories of the girl with the pink hair who had become her friend so long ago.

She can’t think of Madoka as anything _but_ a girl. Even if right now, she’s a brown-haired _moron_ who’s going to try to sell her soul to Kyubey because she needs to be herself.

 

**N+7**

 

The next time Homura arrives outside Madoka’s house, she’s much more prepared for what to say and do. Obviously, in the past, Madoka must have wished to become the girl Homura knew in the first timeline - although the exact details are a bit unclear.

On the other hand, Kyubey is in the room with Madoka, ready to clear things up on the double.

“I wish,” Madoka says, referencing a sheet of paper she’s covered with a dense scrawl of legalese, “That I had been born as a biological female, and that everyone would remember me as such-”

Homura shoots Kyubey in the head. Another one takes its place before the terrified Madoka and begins eating the corpse splattered across the floor.

Homura shoots that one, too, and Madoka runs away. Homura doesn't blame her, making for pursuit instead.

“This is going to be a long night,” She mutters.

Eventually, Kyubey begins to deploy more durable bodies, too many and too strong for Homura to handle without wasting all of her magical power. And Kyubey distracts Homura, and Madoka, in terror and confusion and desperation, manages to complete her wish.

Homura’s shield begins spinning, dragging her back in time.

 

**N+8**

 

The problem is pretty obvious, as far as Homura is concerned. She effectively needs to save Madoka from herself.

The next time loop, Homura makes an opportunity to talk to Madoka privately.

“Madoka Kaname,” she asks, “do you treasure the life you currently live? And do you consider your family and your friends precious?”

Madoka doesn’t even notice that she was called by the name ‘Madoka,’ she’s so taken aback by the question.

“I… uh…” Madoka begins. “Oh, well, I uh... Of course I do. I mean I-I do. My family and my friends, I love them very much and yes they're very precious to me.”

“Do you mean it?” Homura replies.

“Absolutely. I couldn't lie about that!” Madoka shoots back.

“Good. Because if that's the truth, then you wouldn't try changing the life you have or the person you are. Otherwise, you'd lose everything you love.”

Madoka's eyes widen.

“What.”

“Don't change. Stay as you are, Madoka Kaname. Stay as you are forever.”

Homura walks away as if the conversation never happened.

The next day, Madoka is pink-haired again, and no-one calls her ‘Makoto’ anymore. Homura grits her teeth and rewinds time again. Her social skills, atrophied by years of solitude in hospitals and broken by weeks of solitude in time, clearly aren't enough. Maybe this isn't even something that social skills can resolve.

  

**N+9**

 

The next time loops, Homura spends all of her time researching the nitty-gritty of transitioning from male to female - every last detail. If her research involves holding a few doctors and transgender people hostage until they explain what they know, well, that’s just collateral damage.

 

**N+13**

 

Her first attempt at giving Madoka an alternative aside from selling her soul doesn’t go well. As it turns out, teenage transgender girls are understandably wary of strange girls who offer to give them stolen estrogen pills.

Fortunately, Homura has the power to brute-force the universe - to try again and again and again across time until she arrives at a solution, each iteration another step forward.

 

**N+21**

 

"Listen," Madoka says. She clutches her prescriptions in her hand, every medicine bottle acquired legitimately (for a given value of legitimately) and vetted for safety in a way that Madoka will accept. "It's not that I'm not grateful - really, I am! This is maybe the nicest thing that anyone has ever done for me, ever!"

Homura can already hear the  _but_ coming on. "You still have doubts?"

Madoka looks away. "...yeah. It's..."

Homura waits. She is the most patient girl in the world, because she has all of the time in the world.

"I would rather have these than not," Madoka says. "But I... I do have doubts. I don't know why I'm trying this, if it won't be enough."

And Homura understands, after talking to so many people like Madoka, watching thoughts churn in minds: if Madoka had months or years to transition and settle in, to leap over the hurdle before her, she would be okay. If she had months or years of therapy, she wouldn't go down the dark roads that present themselves to her: _Why bother with these hormones, when my body will still be such-and-such and so-and-so?_

Madoka doesn't have that opportunity to find peace, because Kyubey will always be whispering poison into her ears:  _you don't need to bother with anyone but me, because you can just make a wish instead_.  _Why would you hurt yourself by denying yourself the body you want, the body that I can give you?_

Homura instantly understands how this timeline will end. She gives it up as doomed.

"I think it will be enough," she says, and smiles like she's meeting Madoka for the first time again. And Madoka smiles too, raw with the reassurance that Kyubey can rip away at any time.

It's a doomed timeline, but it's been a long time since Homura was able to talk to Madoka as a friend.

 

**N+26**

 

Alonya is the Magical Girl who knows everything.  _Knowledge is power_ , after all. She knew about the Magical Girl system before she made her wish, and she knew about Kyubey, and she knew that he made the world go around with words and ideas in the right places.

She doesn't regret her wish.

Now, she opens windows in her mind, into so many places: library records, government databases, market exchanges. Even the network Kyubey uses to administer telepathy between Magical Girls.

She knows everything, which is why she's surprised to find herself at the end of a gun.

"Hello," says the intruder. "You know very much about other Magical Girls, and I think you're going to tell me."

The intruder has covered her Magical Girl raiment in other clothes, to avoid revealing any calling cards, but even the fact that she's able to cover up says something. Alonya places the intruder's accent, and pegs her - probably from Japan. In the back of her mind, she turns her attention to the telepathy network, scanning for clues.

This is a surprise, but she's prepared for surprises, either way. Multiple traps spring, rigged by enchantments and mundane mechanisms, and she's whisked away.

 

**N+27**

 

This is a surprise, but she's prepared for surprises, either way. Multiple traps spring, rigged by enchantments - before she disappears, she sees mundane explosives fail to detonate, and wires fail to deploy.

 

**N+29**

 

This is a surprise, but she's prepared for surprises, either way.

Or at least, she thought she was prepared. Her traps don't go off, and her enchanted teleporter doesn't work.

The intruder's gun fires, piercing her chest only an inch away from the lapel where she pins her Soul Gem.

"Tell me," says the intruder. "If there are Magical Girls with certain sorts of powers, and where I can find them."

 

**N+31**

 

"Oh," says the intruder. "And by the way, if you lie, I'll know."

Alonya tries to lie, and the intruder shoots her in the other side of the chest.

Alonya tells the truth, and her timeline disappears in a bubble of never-was.

 

**N+32**

 

"No," says Femi. "No, I don't do cosmetics. I _heal."_

"This _is_ healing," Homura insists. Before her, the other Magical Girl coaxes life into dead fields with subtle twists and contortions of biokinesis.

"You know that," Femi replies. "And I know that. Do you know who  _doesn't_ know that? Everyone else! I give one girl tits, and soon every girl in a hundred miles is lining up, asking for a nicer rack or smoother skin. And then then the boys are going to come around: 'Yeah, you know what you did to her? I'd like the opposite, my dick isn't big enough!'"

"I'm not asking you to do it for free," Homura replies.

Femi raises an eyebrow. "This will be good."

"I can offer weapons from anywhere in the world."

"No thanks."

"I can offer intelligence on other Magical Girls, who might be plotting against you."

"Maybe."

"I can offer an arbitrary number of Grief Seeds."

"And what good would that be, beyond a handful?" Femi's voice is scornful. "They don't keep, and there's only so much magic you can burn at once."

Homura looks down at her shield, where  _everything_ keeps, from food to Grief Seeds.

 

**N+33**

 

"Miss Tomoe?" Homura asks, her hair done up in braids. "I s-saw you made that baseball bat into a weapon for Sayaka. How did you _do_ that? Is that something I c-could learn to do?"

"Enchanting?" Mami asks rhetorically. "It took me years to learn, but I can show you the ropes. Or the basics, in your case."

 

**N+36**

 

"You're... very good at this, for a beginner. You said you've never had a teacher before?"

 

**N+49**

 

"Your previous teacher must have been very skilled," Mami said. "Who did you say she was?"

Homura doesn't have to try very hard to fake the appearance of embarrassment. "She said her name was... Madoka! Yes, that was her name."

 

**N+52**

 

"I think you have it down pat, Homura. There's not much more I can teach you; you'll have to learn how to use your own Wish magic in your enchantments-"

 

**N+53**

 

"I can offer an arbitrary number of Grief Seeds," Homura says to the biokinetic.

"And what good would that be, beyond a handful?" Femi's voice is scornful. "They don't keep, and there's only so much magic you can waste at once."

Homura takes a large, gunmetal-gray cube out of her satchel, holding it out carefully. Femi looks at it as if it's a bomb about to go off, already wary of the feeling of magic.

"You can conduct your own tests on this," Homura says. "I've performed several, myself, but you might not trust me and my instruments. The box is enchanted to 'store' items via temporal relocation, sending them forward in time to the moment when you try to retrieve them." The same way that Homura's shield seems to work. "The effect in practice is an almost infinitely-extensible storage space with a stasis effect on the contents. Including Grief Seeds. It currently contains thirty-"

"Bullshit."

Femi tests the box.

"Homura, do you realize what you have here? This is so valuable that if I take it, I'm liable to be _assassinated!"_  Femi says, her voice faint. "I feel like I'm going to regret this, but - yes. I'll do it. Give me the box, and I'll do your job, and if you value your life, you shouldn't tell anyone else you can make these!"

 

**N+55**

 

"I can offer an enchanted container," Homura says to the technopath, behind three layers of obfuscation and anonymization. "Just do a job for me, help me change some records, and it's yours."

 

**N+56**

 

Finally, everything is in place.

And it  _still_ won't go through.

"Listen," Madoka says. "It's not that I'm not grateful - really, I am! This is maybe the nicest thing that anyone has ever done for me, ever!"

"But?" Homura sighs.

"But - this is wrong!" Madoka visibly swallows. "I'd love to just - take your  _teleporter_ \- and meet another Magical Girl like you, and be a girl, but how would I explain it?"

Homura feels a migraine coming on. "The same way that other people do?"

"I can't do what other people do," Madoka says, sounding defeated.

"I know you can-"

"I can't!"

Doomed.  _Doomed_. Madoka is going to get herself killed because she  _won't come out of the closet_.

 

**N+60**

 

Finally, Homura stumbles across the solution by pure chance. She’s sneaking through Madoka’s home in the dead of night, back from a meeting with Magical Girls all of the way in South America. She's about to wake up Madoka and try argument 13B for why she should totally go along with Homura's sketchy plans, when someone turns on the lights.

Junko Kaname takes one look at Homura and swings a frying pan at her head.

“HONEY! THERE’S A BURGLAR IN THE HOUSE!”

Homura gets blindsided, her skull cracking against the floor. Which _really_ doesn’t say good things for her future career as a Magical Girl, and Junko descends on her with the force of an angry goddess.

“No, I’m not a burglar!” Homura hisses. But it’s not like she can just _tell_ Junko why she’s really there.

Or, wait. Wait a second, go back-

 

**N+61**

 

Freezing time makes it easy to appear in Madoka’s kitchen, as if by teleportation.

Tomohisa Kaname looks at Homura from over his newspaper, and is actually rather unfazed by the newcomer at the table where the family is eating breakfast.

“Mister Kaname,” Homura says. “I am a Magical Girl," (True) "here to do my good deed for the day." (True from a certain point of view.) "Your ‘son,’ Makoto Kaname, is actually a transgender girl who would prefer to be called Madoka.” (Definitely true.)

Madoka, across the room, drops her bowl of cereal into her lap. Along with her jaw. She doesn’t deny Homura’s words.

“Yeah, I know,” Homura says to Madoka. “It’s _really_ not nice to out you like this, but I’m not going to be principled.”

“What,” Madoka says.

“Okay,” Tomohisa says dryly, as if he isn’t confronting a teleporting interloping _Magical Girl,_  and as if he isn’t speaking over Madoka’s confusion. “That’s certainly important information, but I’d appreciate it if you got out of our house.”

Homura exits, leaving behind only her phone number.

 

**N+61**

 

As it turns out, confronting the caring authority figures in Madoka’s life with Madoka’s situation is a cruel, if effective way of getting her the help she needs. Junko cries for hours that her ‘darling daughter’ didn’t trust her with the truth of her gender, and begins putting red ribbons in Madoka’s hair as a way to make herself (and Madoka) feel better. Tomohisa just shrugs and moves on with life like a fucking stoic, and buys a new security system as a totem, as if to keep strangers like Homura out of the home.

Tatsuya is too young to remember that there ever _was_ a ‘Makoto’ to begin with - especially after Madoka calls Homura, and Homura mentions that she knows some Magical Girls who can help Madoka transition...

A week later, Madoka comes out to her friends, Sayaka and Hitomi. Sayaka takes it with infinite grace and poise. Hitomi has an existential crisis, because she actually has a crush on Madoka and “GIRLS CAN’T LOVE GIRLS!”

In the end, Madoka doesn’t contract with Kyubey until the end of the time loop, when she wishes to ‘gain the power to stop Walpurgisnacht.’

 

**N+62**

 

Homura wakes up in the hospital again, and sighs.

“Right,” She says. “I have to help Madoka with her gender issues, _and_ stop Walpurgisnacht, _and_ stop Kyubey.”

Her hand goes to her heart and then her eyes in long-practiced motions, healing the flaws she was born with, and then she shrugs on her clothes. Kyubey uses electronic warfare to disable nuclear bombs in advance - they don't want anything to kill off the human race before they've gotten a return on their investments. But having a technopathic Magical Girl on her side might give her an edge on them.

She leaves the hospital, already planning to drop bigger bombs on Walpurgisnacht, and starts optimizing her schedule. There's so many things she needs to do, and only so much time to do it in.

 _Oh well,_ she resolves, _there’s nothing to it._

_Anything for Madoka._


End file.
